German TV exposes CIA, Mossad links to 1986 Berlin disco bombing

Published on: May 26th, 2003

Modified on: July 6th, 2004

http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/aug1998/bomb1-a27.shtml

By a German correspondent
27 August 1998

A documentary broadcast August 25 by German public television presents
compelling evidence that some of the main suspects in the 1986 Berlin
disco bombing, the event that provided the pretext for a US air assault
on Libya, worked for American and Israeli
intelligence.

The report, aired by Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF television), is
of the greatest relevance to events of the past three weeks, in which
attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania have become the justification
for US missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan, and a shift in American
foreign policy to an even more unbridled use of military force internationally.

With Washington declaring "war against terrorism" and arrogating
to itself the right to use its military might unilaterally against any
target anywhere in the world, the German TV report raises the most serious
and disturbing questions. All the more so, since the US media and leading
Republican politicians, within hours of the American embassy bombings,
began citing Reagan's 1986 air attack on Libya as an exemplary response
to terrorist attacks, and pressed Clinton to carry out similar military
action.

The air strike on Libya

On April 15, 1986 US war planes bombed the Libyan cities of Tripoli and
Benghazi. They destroyed the home of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and
killed at least 30 civilians, including many children. Gaddafi himself,
the main target of the air strike, was not hurt.

Two hours later President Ronald Reagan justified the unprecedented attack
on a sovereign country and its head of state in a national television
address. The US, Reagan claimed, had "direct, precise and irrefutable"
proof that Libya was responsible for a bomb blast in a West Berlin discotheque.
The explosion 10 days earlier at the disco La Belle, a favorite nightspot
for US soldiers, had killed three people and injured 200.

Since November of 1997 five defendants have been on trial in a Berlin
court for their alleged involvement in the La Belle attack. But in the
course of more than half a year the case has proceeded very slowly. ZDF
television, which carried out its own investigation into the case, explained
why in the August 25 documentary produced by its political magazine Frontal.

What the German documentary reveals

The Frontal report arrives at the following conclusions:

1) The lead defendant presently on trial, Yasser Chraidi, is very
possibly innocent, and is being used as a scapegoat by German and American
intelligence services.

2) At least one of the defendants, Musbah Eter, has been working
for the CIA over many years.

3) Some of the key suspects have not appeared in court, because
they are being protected by Western intelligence services.

4) At least one of those, Mohammed Amairi, is an agent of Mossad,
the Israeli secret service.

The man charged with being the mastermind of the La Belle attack, 38-year-old
Yasser Chraidi, was a driver at the Libyan embassy in East Berlin in 1986.
He later moved to Lebanon, from whence he was extradited to Germany in
May 1996.

Frontal interviewed the two Lebanese responsible for the extradition
of Chraidi: the former public prosecutor Mounif Oueidat and his deputy
Mrad Azoury. Both confirm that the German authorities used deceit to have
Chraidi extradited.

According to Azoury, he received no evidence that Chraidi was actually
involved in the attack; there were only "hints." Oueidat states
that the Germans showed tremendous interest in getting Chraidi. "The
Americans were behind this demand," he says. "This was obvious.
They spurred on the Germans to speed up the extradition."

Eventually Chraidi, declared to be a "top terrorist," was flown
to Germany in a spectacular security operation. But a Berlin judge found
the evidence presented by the prosecution so weak, he threatened to release
Chraidi within three weeks unless more proof was presented.

At this point another man was brought into the case, who, according to
Frontal, "was obviously supposed to be spared by the prosecution
until then." On September 9, 1996, the very day the Berlin judge
threatened to release Chraidi, Berlin public prosecutor Detlev Mehlis,
Berlin police inspector Uwe Wilhelms and a Mr. Winterstein of the German
Federal Intelligence Service (BND) met Musbah Eter in the Mediterranean
island state of Malta.

The meeting had been prepared by the BND, which maintains close connections
to its American counterpart, the CIA. Musbah Eter was running an international
business in Malta, which, according to Frontal, served as a cover for
extensive intelligence operations on behalf of the CIA.

The German authorities wanted him on a murder charge. But during the
Malta meeting a deal was struck: "Immunity for Eter, if he incriminates
Chraidi for La Belle." The next day Eter went to the German embassy
and testified. As a result, the warrant against him was scrapped and he
was allowed to travel to Germany.

In the words of Frontal, Eter is "the key figure in the La Belle
trial." At the time of the disco bomb attack he worked for the Libyan
embassy in East Berlin. But he paid regular visits to the US embassy.
According to Christian Ströbele, the lawyer for Chraidi, this highly
unusual fact is proven by extensive notes of the East German secret police,
who watched Eter very closely at the time.

There are many indications that Eter was actively involved in the La
Belle bombing. According to interrogation transcripts studied by Frontal,
he had the detailed knowledge of a participant. He even admitted that
he brought the operating instructions for the bomb to the flat of a codefendant.

Frontal asserts that besides the defendants in the present trial, another
group was involved in the La Belle bombing--a group of professional terrorists,
working for anybody who paid them, led by a certain "Mahmoud"
Abu Jaber. Members of this group, according to Frontal, "have barely
been bothered by the prosecution and live securely in other countries."

In the months preceding the La Belle attack they lived in East Berlin
and met, almost on a daily basis, with the present defendants. Hours before
the attack they moved to West Berlin, where the bomb exploded. Their movements
were monitored by the East German and Russian secret services, who concluded
that they were working for Western intelligence.

The Russian KGB, in a document cited by Frontal, gave the opinion that
American counterintelligence planned to use "Mahmoud" to concoct
a case for the involvement of Libyan terrorists in the attack. According
to the same KGB document, "Mahmoud" had warned West Berlin intelligence
two days before the explosion.

Frontal followed the traces of Mohammed Amairi, the right-hand man of
"Mahmoud" Abu Jaber, who, according to the documents it has
studied, "was particularly involved in the preparation of the La
Belle attack."

An agent of Mossad

Amairi left Germany for Norway in 1990, when a warrant was issued for
his arrest. He now lives in the Norwegian town of Bergen, where Frontal
found and interviewed him. He stopped the interview when he was asked
what secret service he had been working for. His lawyer, Odd Drevland,
finally told the story.

When Amairi moved to Norway he was arrested and branded "a danger
to the country" on the front page of tabloids. But then the Israeli
secret service Mossad took charge of him and "everything changed."

In the meantime, Norway has granted asylum to Amairi and he will soon
receive Norwegian citizenship. The Berlin prosecutor has lifted the warrant
against him.

"These secret service intrigues present a task for the Berlin court
that is almost insoluble," concludes the Frontal report. "But
one thing is certain, the American legend of Libyan state terrorism can
no longer be maintained."

It may come as a shock to many Americans, all the more so given the utterly
venal and lying role of the US media, but US intelligence services are
well versed in the most unscrupulous and bloody methods, not excluding
those that result in injury or death to Americans. No serious consideration
of the August 7 East African bombings can rule out the possibility of
a provocation, organized either directly or indirectly by US agencies.

Certainly the US embassy bombings, with their terrible human toll--for
the most part, African--provided a welcome pretext for forcing through
a desired shift in policy and obtaining public support for unilateral
military action. Indeed, within hours of the US embassy bombings, the
International Herald Tribune had published a column declaring the attacks
were "acts of war and the United States could take reprisals against
the bombers under international law without the approval of the United
Nations."

We wait with interest to see whether any of the American television networks--CBS,
NBC, ABC, CNN--or any of the establishment newspapers will even take note
of the German exposé of the events surrounding the bombing of Libya.
We have no expectation that they will.

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